STARTER DAO - the Rebirth of EOSTARTER
Let’s start with a much overdue Update on WHAT HAPPENED WITH EOSTARTER.
TLDR: I failed. big time! but the work isn't over, and we have a path forward :-)
I can explain how it all played out, and maybe it can help our community to understand how things happened. So let’s put it into a timeline:
Around May last year, I decided I am done sitting on the sidelines. I wanted to start building, and I kept thinking what can I build that will help grow our EOS community the most? Back then Launchpads were all the rage and I had experienced a lot of IDOs and got onboarded into new ecosystems through those new token launches… Of course! That’s what we need on EOS: EOSTARTER!
And so I went on and placed most of my portfolio on a business account to begin our journey:
June 2021: We announced the creation of EOSTARTER: https://medium.com/eostarter/introducing-eostarter-613fca045a99
We immediately got to work on building the community and reaching out to potential projects. We managed to get up to 7 projects into the EOSTARTER Incubator and I was having regular meetings with all the projects to try and help them launch.
August: We announced the Tartiers NFT Project: https://medium.com/eostarter/the-tartiers-are-coming-952243ac539
We managed to rally the EOS community, get everyone excited, and began the Genesis Tarts Giveaway.
Ever since we began working on the project, we were working in 3 key directions:
- Onboarding Projects onto the Incubator
- Developing the TokenSale platform
- Launching the Tartiers NFT Project and the $TART Token
September: the Tartiers NFT Drop was a HUGE Success and it gave us some room to operate and keep building:
https://medium.com/eostarter/the-tartiers-nft-drop-was-a-massive-success-what-comes-next-4e83d3a81e63
November: We laid out the system design and scope of work for the TokenSale Contract: https://medium.com/eostarter/eostarter-tokensale-platform-scope-of-work-4cb153c33ab6
It was also in November when Brock announced his Idea for Helios:
https://bywire.news/articles/brock-pierce-goes-all-in-on-eos
I immediately reached out to Brock to offer my help with building Helios. I brought in all my team and partners for the mission, including Vero, Brendan, and Chris Barnes. I truly believed in the vision tha Brock set for Helios and I wanted to do whatever I could to help out. So I flew to Puerto Rico to help run the inauguration and I also helped him through the freezing of the vested EOS Drama.
To be clear, I was NOT doing this to get funding for EOSTARTER, but because I believed in Brock and his commitment to our community. Now, obviously having the opportunity I wanted to pitch him on EOSTARTER and I believed that he would also see the importance of a successful launchpad on EOS. I really offered him the platform on a silver platter, and even presented a strategy to offer launching on EOSTARTER as part of the Helios Incubator.
After months of ongoing conversations with Percival (Brock’s family office), I got a soft commitment for investment on EOSTARTER. We wanted to raise $2M to build the platform and they offered to invest $50K. I still was willing to take the offer since we were really running out of funds by then.That $50K investment never came through. I don’t think any projects have gotten a direct investment from Helios yet. I don’t want to judge Brock and I think that Chris and the team have done a wonderful job of spinning the Helios Narrative into an active community member/media outlet for the EOSIO ecosystem. But in terms of capital allocation for EOSIO projects… NADA.
January 2022: We began building the smart contract platform with our partners @ Edenia (EOS Costa Rica) https://medium.com/eostarter/eostarter-and-eos-costa-rica-enter-a-strategic-partnership-59b7119ac93c
By then, the budget I had left was not enough to build the whole platform, but it was enough to build the smart contract and deploy it onto testnet, which is what we did.
March: We deployed the TokenSale Smart contract to the Jungle Testnet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piqs1uE0HoM
I used the last of the funds to complete that Tokensale contract, and we were already running on fumes.
April: I submitted the Grant Proposal to the ENF to further develop the EOSTARTER platform: https://github.com/eosnetworkfoundation/grant-framework/pull/11
May 2022: The grant was rejected on the basis that EOSTARTER had been part of a token sale (even if those tokens were Non-Fungible)
I had one last call with Yves Larose @ ENF to try to save EOSTARTER, and unfortunately, he didn’t want to take on the potential liabilities of the project due to our NFT Sale.
By then I was really out of options, and both of my clients at the time had canceled our engagement, which left me with no funds to continue developing and finishing our Card Game.
June: I announced the pausing of operations: https://twitter.com/Eostarter1/status/1534551829304025088?s=20&t=mJzzeWvZBUgIbar-kcAarA
The last few months have been very challenging, and I didn’t even participate in the 3rd season of Pomelo because I didn’t know what to propose and honestly I was ashamed of not being able to launch EOSTARTER properly, but NOW I DO!!
So what’s next? And How do we make the best of the current situation?
Introducing STARTER DAO, the Re-birth of EOSTARTER as a community-powered and community-owned launchpad for the Antelope ecosystem.
The idea is to Open-source the whole thing. Not only the Smart Contract but the front-end and back-end too. I am also proposing to restructure the Launchpad platform as a DAO and relinquish ownership of the project. EOSTARTER as a company can remain a service provider for the DAO.
The project will be completely community owned and we will make the decisions in a DAO format, including DAO proposals to fund the development of the launchpad, and the projects that get listed for launching on STARTER. We can use the already-developed Smart Contract as a basis for the platform.
The fees collected for each launch will be determined by the members of the DAO, as well as the use of the proceeds.
I will organize the DAO, set up the structure, and create the initial proposals to kick-start the project, and will give everything in my power to make this a great success.
All I ask for in return is that STARTER DAO Keeps the TARTIER NFTs as a valuable part of the ecosystem and upholds their original intended utility. I still have a commitment to everyone who purchased a Tartier when we launched and this is what drives me to continue to build.
I still believe we need a successful Launchpad in our ecosystem in order for it to really thrive, attract new developers, and bring in new adoption and investors into the community.
But I can’t do this alone, I need YOU! The Antelope community. We can do this together, and I hope we can support this idea, and BUIDL STARTER TOGETHER!
Much Love and respect
Hernan @ STARTER DAO